After getting through the holidays, our travel day soon arrived. On January 25th, 2020, we left for our trip. As I mentioned in a previous post, we booked our flights on American Airlines. Normally this would have us traveling out of Reagan National Airport, which is an American hub, but our flights were instead out of Dulles. Since the flights were in the afternoon at 3:40 pm, we had the taxi pick us up around 12:45, which got us to the airport around 1 pm. We dropped off our bags and proceeded through the relatively empty TSA Precheck security lines.
We made our way via the train to Terminal B. While walking to our gate, we ran into friend of our daughter’s that was heading out to visit some colleges on the West Coast. After chatting for a few minutes, we left to grab some lunch. We had a tight connection in Charlotte, so I wasn’t sure we would have time to grab dinner. After enjoying our lunch, we headed to our gate.
The gate area wasn’t very crowded. After a while, the boarding process started and we were soon on our way. The flight to Charlotte was on a small plane, which a two and two configuration. We spread on in the same row, with two on each side. Although I was really nervous about the connection time in Charlotte, we managed to arrive at the gate in Charlotte 15 minutes before we were supposed to.
As soon as we got off the plane, we started heading as fast as possible to our other gate. The Charlotte airport was undergoing some refurbishment in the terminal our other flight was in, so some of the restaurants weren’t open.
We managed to find something to eat, then waited a few minutes until the flight started boarding. The gate area was kind of crazy with tons of families. There definitely seemed to be a lot of cruisers heading down to San Juan, specifically for the Disney Cruise or the Carnival Cruise based on the conversations we were overhearing. I was very concerned that our bags weren’t going to make the transfer in time, but I was able to track them in the American Airlines App on my phone. I kept refreshing until I saw they had been loaded onto the plane with us, at which point I felt I could finally relax.
The next plane was much bigger with a three and three configuration. Nancy was seated in the window seat in the row in front of the girls and me. The flight was a bit bumpy on the way down, so the Captain had the seat belt sign on for a good portion of the flight. Luckily, we ended up getting into San Juan 45 minutes early.
The city of San Juan came into view really late, I suspect because of a lot of cloud cover. Once we could see it, we were all pretty excited. We loved our visit to Puerto Rico three years ago and couldn’t wait to be back. If you’ve never been to Puerto Rico, it is definitely a must visit destination in our opinion.
We landed at 10:45 pm local time and quickly got off the plane. We headed immediately to baggage claim to pick up our bags. Our next stop was the taxi stand outside. The weather was nice and warm with some light rain, quite unlike Washington when we left. We got into a taxi mini-van and headed off after informing the driver that we needed to go to the Caribe Hilton. I happened to glance over at his dash and I don’t think I have ever seen a dashboard with more warning lights on. I decided as long as the driver got us to the hotel safely, I really didn’t care.
We did manage to arrive at the Caribe Hilton safely. The girls and Nancy had a seat while I went to check in. We had selected our room online, but I think we got a slight upgrade to a room with an ocean view, which was nice. The hotel was really lit up with various neon lights. There also seemed to be some functions happening at the hotel that night with a lot of dressed up people hanging around.
Once we finished checking in, we headed to the room. We were in West Tower in an ocean view room. The room had two queen sized beds and was really laid out nicely with tons of space for suitcases. The beds were also really comfortable.
The bathroom was really large, with plenty of counter space and a nice sized shower.
The best part of the room was definitely the view. It was a little bit obstructed, but we still got a nice view of the ocean and the city. After checking out the room and getting settled, we headed to bed. We had a long day of travel and wanted to get up early to head to the ship in the morning.
We actually set an alarm so we would be up and showered in the morning. When the alarm went off at 7 am, nobody was really excited about it. We did manage to get showered and ready by 8:15 in order to go downstairs to get some breakfast before we needed to leave for the ship. My Hilton Honors Diamond membership entitled us to two complementary breakfasts. We would have to pay for the girls’ breakfasts though. As we were checked in to the restaurant, they explained that only part of the breakfast buffet counted as the complementary breakfast. If we wanted the full buffet, that would be an additional charge. I considered going to the Starbucks to grab something quick, but decided to just sit down to have breakfast. That ended up being a $100 mistake on my part. Here are some pictures of the $100 buffet we got to partake in.
Overall, the food was good, but definitely overpriced. I suppose that should have been expected at a full service Hilton. I didn’t know it at the time though, but I ended up getting credited for the price of the breakfast. My American Express Hilton Aspire card includes a $250 credit each year when used at a Hilton Resort, which the Caribe Hilton must qualify as. Given that we probably won’t be traveling much more this year, I’m now happy that I was able to use part of the credit.
After breakfast, we ended up walking around the resort to take some pictures. The resort is huge.
There are numerous pools at the resort. Unfortunately, we really didn’t get a chance to enjoy them.
There is also a small beach on the resort grounds as well.
If you notice in the above and below pictures, you’ll see some of the fortifications from Old San Juan.
We finally managed to get a picture of the hotel itself. It is pretty expansive, including the grounds, pools and the beach.
After walking around, we headed back to the room to get our bags. After checking out of the room, we headed downstairs to meet up with our friends who were going on the trip with us. It was about 10 am, so we decided to head to the port. We summoned two Ubers and were soon on our way to meet up with the Wonder!
Next up, we will board the Wonder!
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